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Daily news - 8th April 2024

UK news

Notice: Addiction Mission

The health and wider societal costs to society in England of illegal drug use is approximately £20 billion per year, with the harms from alcohol use estimated to cost another £25 billion. Since 2012 the number of drug-related deaths has increased by 80%, and there are now approximately 4500 UK deaths annually due to drug misuse. In addition there are over 9600 annual UK deaths from alcohol. The Addiction Mission, announced as part of the UK’s Drug Strategy: From Harm to Hope, and delivered as one of the Office for Life Sciences Healthcare Missions, is aiming to help reduce this cost by enhancing the UK-wide research environment and incentivising the development of innovative and effective new treatments, technologies and approaches to support recovery, and reduce harm and deaths | DHSC, DSIT, Office for Life Sciences, UK

Research and analysis: ACMD advice on 2-benzyl benzimidazole and piperidine benzimidazolone opioids

Updated: A fourth addendum has been added, recommending the proposed generic definition be further updated to capture the suspected newly identified compound methylenedioxynitazene and any structurally related compounds to it that may appear in future | ACMD, UK

Correspondence: Government response to the ACMD work programme 2024

Dear Professor Bowden-Jones, Thank you for meeting me on 20 February to discuss the ACMD’s work programme for 2024, which was published on 14 February. I am very grateful to the ACMD for expediting the reports on Acyl Piperazine Opioids, including 2-Methyl-AP-237; and Recently encountered uncontrolled novel benzodiazepines and related compounds (2024) update, published on 27 March and 28 March respectively, following my request at that meeting. The government will consider and respond to those reports in full, separately... | Rt Hon Chris Philp MP, Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire, UK

Quitting smoking could redirect £11bn a year into local economies, study says

Money spent on tobacco products in England ‘could instead be spent in shops, on entertainment or other services’, author adds | Guardian, UK

Cancer charity supports NI alcohol warning labels

From 2026, it will be a legal requirement for all bottles of alcohol in the Republic of Ireland to carry a label | BBC, UK

Warning issued over "dangerous" batch of Ketamine circulating in Liverpool

Merseyside Police have issued warnings over a “dangerous” batch of ketamine in circulation around Liverpool. The warnings followed news that three men had suffered seizures last Saturday, March 30, after taking ketamine at a premises on Fleet Street at around 5:AM | MixMag, UK

Cessation of Smoking Trial in the Emergency Department (COSTED): a multicentre randomised controlled trial

Supporting people to quit smoking is one of the most powerful interventions to improve health. The Emergency Department (ED) represents a potentially valuable opportunity to deliver a smoking cessation intervention if it is sufficiently resourced. The objective of this trial was to determine whether an opportunistic ED-based smoking cessation intervention can help people to quit smoking | BMJ, UK

Electronic Cigarettes

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate her Department has made of the number of adult vapers that may return to tobacco products as a result of the disposable vapes ban | They work for you, UK

Electronic Cigarettes and Tobacco: Genetics

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment has she made of the potential implications for her policies of the findings of the research article by University College London entitled Cigarette smoking and e-cigarette use induce shared DNA methylation changes linked to carcinogenesis, published on 19 March 2024 | They work for you, UK

Opioids: Overdoses

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to provide public health interventions for people at risk of overdosing on (a) naloxone and (b) other synthetic opioids | They work for you, UK

How drag developed a drink problem: ‘Everyone expects us to be loud and wasted’

The world of drag has always tangled with excess, with punters expecting performers to be at least a little bit sozzled and venues often offering queens free drinks along with their performance fees. For some queens, however, this can spiral into a serious problem | Independent, UK

Why are so many celebrities selling CBD Gummies? Ex-Premier League stars, boxers and glamour models push legal cannabis edibles claiming to banish 'anxiety'… but experts cast doubt on whether they work

Scientists from Bath and Oxford last week found that the CBD pain relief products are no better than a placebo at relieving pain, and the unregulated products may contain other chemicals that may be harmful. Reacting to the study, Ian Hamilton, an honorary fellow in addiction at the University of York, told MailOnline: 'It confirms what I've always thought which is that they are marketed in a way that suggests they're going to be effective but really they are no more effective than a sugar pill.' | Mail Online, UK

TILT Community Launch - video

We are live! Sign up now to the FREE Trauma Informed Learning Tool Community! Step into a supportive space crafted just for you – a community where resilience meets understanding, and where every voice is heard. Our community on TILT is a hub for health, social care, education, criminal justice, support services and more, united by a commitment to trauma informed practice | Risk and Resilience, UK

Webinar with the CMO: How to support the Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Tue, 09 Apr, 10:00 - 11:00 BST. Online. The purpose of this ASH webinar is to inform stakeholders about how they can support the Tobacco and Vapes Bill as it progresses through parliament. The webinar will include an update from the Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, on the purpose and expected timeline of the Bill, followed by updates from national and local stakeholders | ASH, UK

Unmet Treatment Need: Survey of Drug and Alcohol Treatment Professionals

In her independent review of drugs, Dame Carol Black drew attention to out-of-treatment, problem drug and alcohol users. Our research has been funded to explore the obstacles to treatment faced by such people. We have already identified and interviewed out-of-treatment users in two case-study locations, and we are now keen to get the views of treatment providers nationally. We would be very grateful if you could fill out this short survey, the results of which will be fed back to policymakers in the Department of Health and Social Care | University of York, UK

Women reported by police over toddler vape videos

Two women have been reported to Scotland's prosecution service after videos showing a toddler vaping were shared online | BBC, UK

£250m drug bust warning to criminals, say police

An operation to smash a crime gang which brought £250m of heroin and cocaine into the UK will be felt across the country, says the head of a special police unit | BBC, UK

Belfast Port: Man arrested after £1.25m cannabis seizure

The discovery was made on Sunday morning in a joint operation involving detectives from the Paramilitary Crime Task Force and Belfast Harbour Police | BBC, UK

International news

Christiania: A Copenhagen hippy commune fights back against drug gangs

For more than 50 years, the hippy neighbourhood of Christiania has been a haven of counter-culture, in the very heart of the Danish capital Copenhagen. Popular with tourists, it is known for its liberal attitude towards cannabis and the infamous drug market, Pusher Street. However, in recent years organised criminals have increasingly taken over, and growing violence has rattled the community | BBC, UK

Royal Navy seizes £17m of drugs in Caribbean Sea

HMS Trent seized 200kg of cocaine and other drugs in two operations that intercepted speedboats | Guardian, UK

Drug checking service opens at Sydney injecting room but NSW still blocking festival pill testing

Participants in Kings Cross pilot project to be surveyed to see if tests change the way they use drugs | Guardian, UK

Sierra Leone declares emergency over drug kush - made from human bones

President Julius Maada Bio called the drug a "death trap" and said it posed an "existential crisis". | BBC, UK

Effects of the Communities that Heal (CTH) intervention on perceived opioid-related community stigma in the HEALing Communities Study: results of a multi-site, community-level, cluster-randomized trial

[Open access] Community stigma against people with opioid use disorder (OUD) and intervention stigma (e.g., toward naloxone) exacerbate the opioid overdose crisis. We examined the effects of the Communities that HEAL (CTH) intervention on perceived opioid-related community stigma by stakeholders in the HEALing Communities Study (HCS) | Lancet, USA

Did Oregon pull the plug too soon on drug decriminalization?

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek ended the state’s experiment with decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of hard drugs this week, but the debate over whether the state pulled the plug too soon is just beginning | The Hill, USA

Was the FDA too quick approving test for opioid addiction risk?

A test to gauge if it's safe to prescribe a patient an addictive opioid may have been approved too soon by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, claims a letter sent to the agency by a group of experts | Medical Xpress, USA

Researchers find antipsychotics help ease episodes of marijuana-induced psychosis

Overuse of marijuana is increasingly being linked to dangerous bouts of psychosis, and a new study finds that antipsychotics may be needed to keep such patients out of the hospital | Medical Xpress, USA

A deep dive into the genetics of alcohol consumption

A research group centered at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine has drilled deep into a dataset of over 3 million individuals compiled by the direct-to-consumer genetics company 23andMe, Inc., and found intriguing connections between genetic factors influencing alcohol consumption and their relationship with other disorders | Medical Xpress, USA

[Open access] Physical exercise (PE) has been suggested as a potential complementary tool for substance use disorder (SUD) recovery. However, its potential benefits for the brain and cognitive functions are relatively less explored, even though cognitive functions play a key role in the recovery process. Here, we aim to (1) compile results from studies that examined the effects of PE on brain and/or cognitive functions in individuals with SUD, and (2) provide recommendations for future research and practitioners | Mental Health & Physical activity, USA

How frequently is alcohol advertised on television in Canada?: A cross-sectional study

[Open access] Alcohol marketing is a commercial driver of alcohol use, including among youth. This study sought to quantify and characterize alcohol advertising on broadcast television in Canada | Alcohol and Alcoholism, USA

Who is using oxycodone in NSW and why?

A sociodemographic study of the use of oxycodone usage in NSW shows women of childbearing age, people living in regional areas and older people were more likely to have been prescribed the opioid | UNSW, Australia

Blogs, comment and opinion

WHO should embrace tobacco harm reduction to save lives

Kelley Lee and colleagues describe the hard-won progress of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). As someone who was in the room from the conception to the adoption of the FCTC, I offer insights that highlight how the convention has not adapted to scientific and technological advances and destined more users of toxic tobacco products to live shorter, less healthy lives | Lancet Correspondence, UK

How Muslims Around the World Use Drugs During Ramadan

Ramadan is a period of introspection, self-restraint and prayer, and most commonly associated with fasting from food and water from sunrise to sunset for around 29 days every year. This custom is one of the core pillars of Islam, and thus a key practicing pillar of identity for many Muslims around the world. Ramadan is considered the holiest month in Islam, where prayers are stronger than throughout the year. While many abstain from substances throughout this period, particularly if they use drugs in a recreational manner, this can be more challenging for those struggling with addiction, or within treatment for drug use | Talking Drugs, UK

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